Ancient Life-Size Lion Statues Baffle Scientists

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Two sculptures of life-size lions, each weighing about 5 tons in
antiquity, have been discovered in what is now Turkey, with
archaeologists perplexed over what the granite cats were used
for.

One idea is that the statues, created between 1400 and 1200 B.C.,
were meant to be part of a monument for a sacred water spring,
the researchers said.

The lifelike lions were created by the Hittites who controlled a
vast empire in the region at a time when the
Asiatic lion roamed the foothills of Turkey.

"The lions are prowling forward, their heads slightly lowered;
the tops of their heads are barely higher than the napes," write
Geoffrey Summers, of the Middle East Technical University, and
researcher Erol Özen in an article
published in the most recent edition of the American Journal
of Archaeology.

The
two lion sculptures have stylistic differences and were made
by different sculptors. The lion sculpture found in the village
of Karakiz is particularly lifelike, with rippling muscles and a
tail that curves around the back of the granite boulder.

"The sculptors certainly knew what lions looked like," Summers
told LiveScience in an interview. He said that both
archaeological and ancient written records indicate that the
Asiatic lion, now extinct in Turkey, was still very much around,
some even being kept by the Hittites in pits.

The story of the discovery of the massive lions began in 2001,
when Özen, at the time director of the Yozgat Museum, was alerted
to the existence of the ancient quarry by a man from Karakiz
village and an official from the Ministry of Culture. An
extensive search of the area was undertaken in spring 2002 with
fieldwork occurring in the following years.

Looters, however, beat the archaeologists to the catch. The
Karakiz lion was found dynamited in two, likely in the mistaken
belief that it contained
hidden treasure. "There's this belief that monuments like
this contain treasure," said Summers, explaining that the
dynamiting of monuments is a problem in Turkey. "It makes the
Turkish newspapers every month or so."

The second lion, found to the northeast of the village, had also
been split in two. As a result of this destruction both lion
sculptures, which originally were paired with another, now mainly
have one lion intact.

The danger of new looting loomed over the researchers while they
went about their work. In the summer of 2008 evidence of
" fresh
treasure hunting " was found at the ancient quarry along with
damage to a drum-shaped rock that, in antiquity, was in the
process of being carved.

What were they intended for?

The discovery of the massive lions, along with other pieces in
the quarry, such as a large stone basin about 7 feet (2 meters)
in diameter, left the archaeologists with a mystery — what were
they intended for? [ History's
Most Overlooked Mysteries ]

A search of the surrounding area revealed no evidence of a
Hittite settlement dating back to the time of the statues. Also,
the sheer size of the sculptures meant that the sculptors likely
did not intend to move them very far.

Summers hypothesizes that, rather than being meant for a palace
or a great city, the lions were being created for a
monument to mark something else – water.

"I think it's highly likely that that monument was going to be
associated with one of the very copious springs that are quite
close," he said in the interview. "There are good parallels for
associations of Hittite sculptural traditions with water
sources."

Indeed one well-known monument site, known as Eflatun P?nar,
holds a sacred pool that "is fed by a spring beneath the pool
itself," write Yi?it Erbil and Alice Mouton in an article that
was published in the most recent edition of the Journal of Near
Eastern Studies. The two researchers were writing about water
religions in ancient Anatolia (Turkey).

"According to the Hittite cuneiform texts, water was seen as an
effective purifying element," Erbil and Mouton write, "used in
the form of lustrations or even full baths during ritual
performances, its cleansing power is self-evident."

To the Hittites the natural world, springs included, was a place
of great religious importance, one worthy of monuments with giant
lions. "These things (water sources) were sacred, just as their
mountains were sacred," Summers said.